


On Touch And Mortality / On Loss And Immortality

by Nadja_Lee



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Goodbyes, Grief/Mourning, Immortality, Loss, Love, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-09-09
Updated: 2001-09-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22838074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadja_Lee/pseuds/Nadja_Lee
Summary: Rogue can finally touch someone.Logan thinks about losses and his future.
Relationships: Logan/Rogue (X-Men)
Kudos: 4





	1. On Touch And Mortality

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to Mie. I shall pray for you and hope to see you again in good health . I'll always love you.

**On Touch And Mortality**

Life isn't fair, life is never fair. I didn't want to be a mutant; I didn't want to be the untouchable one. I never wished for this, I never wanted this feeling of loneliness and isolation.

Why does this hurt me so much? Why does it feel like someone has cut my heart out? Why do I cry so much?

" Don't cry, darlin`," Logan whispers and pulls me close to him. We stand side by side outside in the rain in the back of Xavier's property. In front of us is a small wooded cross. I cling to Logan as if he's the only safe thing in an insane world and he is. He gave me this gift; he saved me, gave me back a little of what I'd lost. I want to ask him, bed him, demand of him that he brings her back to me. Right now. I want her back! I need her back…

I've had her for 15 years, 15 wonderful years. Logan found her one day and brought her to me. In his warm winter gloves he held her out to me, this little wet and absolutely adorable silver kitten. She tried to touch me with her paws and I almost fell backwards in my hurry to move away. Logan told me to stand still and close my eyes. I did. I instantly tensed and when I felt a gently and soft furry paw on my naked arm and jacked my arm away as if burned. But as I opened my eyes she was all right; the kitten was all right. I couldn't understand how that could be; I had touched it, I should have killed it, my touch always kills, I always bring death. Logan kissed the top of my head ever so gently and told me that as there were mutated humans there were mutated animals; the kitten was a mutant. And not just that; she was a mutant like me. She too killed whatever she touched and that was why she could touch me; we cancelled each other out.

It is indescribable to tell how happy I felt as I held my small kitten, Logi as I called her after Logan, close to my heart. She was the first living creature I had touched in 10 years; touched and not killed. From that day forth I took Logi with me wherever I went; she even slept in my and Logan's bed at night. Logi wasn't who I really wanted to be able to feel skin to skin; that was of cause Logan but she was everything I had. She was all I'll ever have and I love her so. I'll always love her. She brightened my days and made me smile. I can never thank Logan enough for bringing her into my life. She eased my pain and my loneliness.

She couldn't speak, she couldn't tell me her feelings but whenever I held her she would purr and press close to me; besides her only Logan don't fear my touch and even though I can't kill him I still have to be careful; very careful as I don't want to hurt him. Logan has always been there for me but when I cry he can't wipe my tears away with his bare hands; can't put his naked arms around me at night. I remember one day I cried and he picked Logi up and lifted her right front paw and gently let her soft paw wipe away my tears.

I never saw Logi as a pet; she will always be a person to me. If I was sad it was as if she knew it because she'll come to me and purr, wanting to be picked up. When I was happy she'd come to play. She was always there for me when I needed touch.

How can someone so small as she come to mean so much to me? All my dreams, all my hopes went into her. For so long, in so many ways, she was my only support. She even came to me on Logan's and my wedding day. When we were dancing our wedding dance in the grand hall in the mansion she came and wanted to play with my veil and made me smile and forget that Logan's and my wedding night would be a wedding night in name only because we can never touch and we will never be able to.

All things dies; I know that better than most. All I touch; I kill. And Logan, my protector, my love and my husband…he can practically live forever while I grow older day by day. I believe in our love to be strong and last all my life even when I'm old and grey but it is hard on both of us; hard to fade away, to grow older and change and see him remain the same. I'm now 42 and though Logan says I'm as beautiful to him today as I was on our wedding day I know my beauty is fading. As a teenager it was fun with the white steak in my hair; now I colour it as black as I can to cover the beginning grey. I want to stay forever young and beautiful for Logan but I can't. I want to touch him but I can't. I want to make love to him but I can't. I want to bear his children but I can't.

Every time I stand before a grave, every time I hear about someone dying, even people I don't know; I'm reminded of my own mortality and Logan's almost immortality. I never want to leave him alone again but I have to. My greatest concern is that when I'm gone he'll be all alone. I watched Highlander once as a kid and found it very romantic how the Immortal loved his wife and stayed faithful to her for 100ths of years; now the thought makes me cry for that Immortal can be Logan and I…I'm the mortal he loved, I'm the woman who he'll hold in his arms when I'm grey and wrinkled while he stay the same as the first time we met. Already our appearance is a problem, people begin to assume that I'm Logan's older sister or aunt and I know it'll only get worse. When we walk together when I'm 80 and he still look like he's 30 something, people will automatically assume I'm his mother. When people address me wrongly I tell Logan that it really doesn't matter though it hurts so much but he'll hear none of it. He'll pop his claws and demand an apology from whoever called me his sister, aunt or whatever. When we talked about this I said that if he always introduced me as his wife people would begin to talk but he don't care. He said that to him I'll always be beautiful for it is the inside that matters and he'll always be proud of me and be honoured to call me his wife; forever. When he talks like that how can I refuse him anything when I love him so much? Though I at times get really frustrated about it I've come to accept what we can and can't do. I wish we could grow old together, I wish we could share that now that we can't share touch; but we cannot and no matter how powerful my wishing is it'll never be enough.

I could touch Logi; I could feel skin against skin one more time. She would always make me forget my worries with her loving and playful nature. Gods, how I miss her. Tears run down my face and now none is there to wipe them away with a soft paw. Logan reaches over and wipes my tears away with his gloved hand and the feel of skin against clothes feels stronger now than ever before. I can't touch anything anymore. I am as I was; I'm untouchable again.

When Logi got ill I tried to deny it; I didn't want it to be true. I visited 10 different doctors and all said the same; she was dying. That Logan threatened them at claw point unfortunately didn't change facts. I was loosing her. I went into denial and Logan…Logan was frustrated beyond words. He recruited Scott or rather dragged him with him and together they searched everywhere for another cat like Logi; for any animal or human like Logi and me. But to no avail. We have a rare mutation, Logi and I; there is no one else. Before at least I had her and I didn't feel so alone; now I'm the only one. The others want to understand, wants to help me but only Logan has admitted that he can't give me everything I desire; he can't give me skin to skin touch and he will never be able to understand the loneliness I feel no matter how much he wants to or tries to. None of us can ever fully understand what it feels like to have each other's mutations; I know this as do Logan. We have no illusions left of the world or each other. Things are as they are and that's the way it is…

But Gods, how I miss her. I'll do anything to bring her back; anything at all…but I have none to bargain with. I feel so lost and alone. So cold, so utterly cold. A shiver runs through me.

" Here, lov`, " Logan says softly and puts his jacket around me.

" Thanks," I whisper and try to smile through tears. He nods and closes his arms around me; pulling me into a warm and secure embrace. At least I still have Logan with me, I still have his love and that is a gift I'm grateful for every day.

I had known from the moment Logi entered my life that one day I'll be without touch again no matter how much I wished it otherwise but knowing doesn't make it any easier.

Maybe in time I can get used to no touch again, maybe in time I can learn to forget her soft paws, her purring, the way her eyes followed me, how I could get lost in her green eyes, the way she'll come to me when I was sad and comfort me…maybe in time I can forget all that. Maybe…


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Logan thinks about losses and his future…

**On Loss And Immortality**

I hate graves, I hate them. Yet here I stand before another one. It's not so bad though for Marie is by my side only she's crying so much, so very very much. I wish I could ease her pain, do something. I can take anything, anything, but her tears. Every tear that falls breaks my heart in two.

" Don't cry, darlin," I whisper and pulls her close to me. We stand side by side outside in back of the Mansion, a plain cross in front of us. I've always thought it was ridiculous to put crosses on graves, in ancient Rome they were used to torment people with then why use them as symbols for "eternal life"?

If it had been anyone but Marie I'll have found it endlessly stupid to stand in the rain before a grave made for a cat. But for my Marie I'll do anything.

I had come back 5 months after I had left for Canada and she had been waiting for me just like I had hoped she would. Though I left mostly to find my past it was also because I needed to know my own feelings for Marie and hers for me. I knew that if she waited for me...she felt the same. We were together for 12 years; we shared a room in the mansion and a bed where I'll hold her clothed body close to mine. We were married in anything but name. I had asked Marie to marry me several times but she had kept avoiding the subject, saying I deserved someone I could touch, someone who could bear my children. But I never wanted anyone but her.

I noticed how sad she got when she by accident killed one of Ro´s plants and though both her and Scooter told her it was alright, she was depressed for days and nothing I did seemed to help. Of all of us she has the worst mutation and I figured it was time I tried to ease that loneliness I knew she felt. So, I went hunting. I stayed in the woods for days, looking for just the one thing, the one living being that would brighten my love's days. Scooter had made a fancy thing for me; it would blink green if the living being had a mutation like Marie's and red if not. It reminded me of a pencil with a miniature lighthouse on top but it worked. I knew Marie's mutation is very rare as Scooter's is, not like telepathy and telekinesis, which are some of the most common mutations, but I still searched for just one, just one, more living being with the power of my Rogue. Finally I found her; a small, lost silver kitten. She looked half dead and fury boiled in me as I knew some uncaring family had cast her away simply because they had tired of her. Making sure my hands were covered I lifted the kitten up and brought her home to Marie. Never have I seen her smile so much. When she found she could touch Logi as Marie had called her, after me by the way which I was rather proud of, she threw her arms around me and kissed me again and again through her shawl.

It was incredible to see how Logi changed her; made her happier. She would always have a smile on her lips and when an accident happened like one time in bed she accidentally touched my skin, she could handle it. Before she'll stay away from me for weeks, afraid to come near me in fear she'll hurt me again. My Marie was happy so, so was I.

But everything ends, everything dies. I know this better than most. I've killed more people than I care to remember and I've buried more people than any man should. Over the years my memories have slowly begun to return and I now know that the experiment done on me was sometime during WW2. I think the Nazis had captured me, as I can't see myself as the patriotic self-sacrificing person who'll volunteer for an experiment like what was done on me in any life or time. It was only the time of my experiment, the why, how and who which I couldn't remember when I first met Marie. I've always been able to remember from 1944 and forth. I remember I fought on D-day, I fought in Korea and finally in Vietnam. That was the last war I was a part off; not only because it was getting harder and harder to use false IDs but also because that war took away the last illusions I'd had about people.

Love is no stranger to me though I've never known love like what I feel for Marie. But I was married once before. Her name was Maria, a French resistance fighter. I met her during the Invasion; she took care of me and I of her. I was very confused and disorientated at that time, didn't even know any of my names at all. She helped me remember my name and the world and I protected her. It was so easy to fall in love and I think we both needed it after what we had been through. Maria's parents had been shot as traitors to Hitler's rule and the Gestapo had once captured and tortured her; we both had great pain in our lives but together we succeeded in easing it a little. I thought it would last forever but it didn't; nothing ever does. She died in 1954, only 9 years after we had married and with her our 7 year old son; Pierre. We had been on a cruise sailing from France to England. The ship wrecked and everybody drowned. I tried to get to Marie and Pierre but we were separated by the panicked masses. The last I ever saw of her was as she reached out a hand for me and called my name while the masses pulled us apart. We all drowned that day; I did too only I didn't die, I never die. To loose a wife is terrible but to loose a child is the worst thing in the world. A father shouldn't outlive his children yet I did; I always outlive them all.

In Marie I've found hope again; I've found love again. Our wedding day was the happiest day of my life. But I know our time is limited or rather her time is limited; I'm stuck here forever and without Marie I can imagine no greater Hell.

Things change, they always do; only I remain the same. Marie has grown older but if it weren't for the New Year celebrations I wouldn't have noticed. She's as beautiful to me today as she was when I first saw her. She's still a woman-child by heart and I love her for it. She has seen the worst in men, she has seen the best in men and through it all she has stayed true to herself; true to her heart and that's the part I love most about her; her heart, her mind; her personality. She's the only one who truly understands me; when I'm tired of all these battles and the war that will never end, she makes sense of madness when my sanity hangs in the balance. She always seem to understand even when I loose my way and with the love I see in her eyes and hear in her words I know I must have done something right to be allowed to hold a treasure such as her in my embrace at night. Now and forever; my heart will always be hers…only she doesn't have forever and I dare not even think the thought of a life without her; so cold it'll be, so cold I'll be. Cold and alone.

Things have also changed at the Mansion. The professor died some years ago and Scooter took over the school after him. Though Xavier and I were never close his death reminded me of Marie's mortality and my own immortality. Ro married Scooter 2 years before I married Marie so their little baby girl was at our wedding. Though she hid it well, I could see and sense Marie's longing for children of her own, especially as time goes by. The first time I saw her sad because of the kids I wanted to kill the little buggers to make her happy again but Marie didn't like that idea. I went to find Logi for her instead and as always when she felt Logi´s soft skin against her own she smiled again and therefore so did I.

Life and death…all a part of nature. Or so it is said but if I could have Marie with me forever I'll gladly kill anyone to do so. No matter how much I don't want it to happen she is growing older and one day I'll be forced to leave her. I gave her a promise long ago; I promised I'll always protect her and that I'll always be there for her. The day we wed I resaid that vow to myself; I will never leave her. I'll hold her in my arms, I'll ease her pain and her suffering, I'll protect her with my life and love her forever…way beyond her death.

Whoever said they wanted to live forever is either a fool or drunk; probably both. There is no greater curse than going through life alone. To have felt love and see her fade away and die; to be so helpless, to be unable to stop her from dying knowing this is one place where you can't follow, where you can't protect her...

But I can; I can follow her. Jeannie is still studying biochemistry and stuff like that in the basement, she never married and though I wouldn't even wish Scooter with that Ice Queen I do feel sad for the loneliness I'm sure she must feel…somewhere. Jeannie examined my mutation along with the others of cause. She found that Scooter's eye beams was the only thing what could destroy the small part of my metal claw I had given her to look at. In other words, Scooter could kill me with a stare as the only person I know. His beams can destroy my skeleton and burn away my flesh; even my healing factor won't be able to heal that.

As I heard that I vowed that if Scooter outlived Marie, I'll do anything; anything from asking to threatening Ro or his kids to get him mad or sympathetic enough to kill me… for who wants to live forever…alone?

My thoughts return to the present and I see Marie shiver. I take off my jacket and put it around her shoulders.

" Here, lov, " I say softly.

" Thanks," she whispers and try to smile through tears. I nod and closes my arms around her, pulling her close.

I wanted so badly to find another Logi for her to keep her happy but I couldn't find any and believe me; I searched everywhere. Logi was special, I guess, in more ways than one.

In time…in time Marie will get used to no touching again but God how I wished she didn't have to get used to it. The hardest lesson I've ever had to learn is that I can't always protect her, no matter how badly I want to. Maybe in time I'll also learn to accept this…. maybe…though I doubt it.

The End


End file.
